


Harbor: Adrift

by Shujinkakusama



Series: Jaspearlnet: Harbor [2]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Epilogue, Established Relationship, F/F, Interlude, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-11
Updated: 2016-08-11
Packaged: 2018-08-08 02:41:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7740307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shujinkakusama/pseuds/Shujinkakusama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Epilogue for "Safe House"; Pearl and Garnet go searching for proof that Jasper was impacted by their night together as much as they were. Finding it doesn't bring closure. // Set during "The Kindergarten Kid", angst, Pearlnet with both pining for Jasper.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Harbor: Adrift

**Author's Note:**

> This will make no sense without reading Safe House, which is NSFW and can be considered the first work in this 'series'... which I may or may not add to whenever Jasper comes back to the show.

The following week did not contain the futures Garnet hoped for.

 

Jasper had attacked Amethyst at the beach, fought Stevonnie, and otherwise eluded her future sight. Garnet sought her out with Pearl, but wherever Jasper was, it wasn’t the Frozen North anymore.

 

As hickeys and bruises faded, so too did some of Pearl’s confidence that Jasper would resurface. Garnet was confident. Garnet soothed her worries with a hand in her hair and an arm around her shoulders. There were other, pressing things to contend with; Bismuth’s return had shaken the two of them much more than they might have liked, a harsh reminder of what the Crystal Gems had once represented. A harsher loss when Steven came home with her in a bubble, battered and singed.

 

Would Jasper be as stubborn, as unwilling to compromise? Would she really return as an adversary?

 

Garnet didn't care for asking questions often, but Pearl was boiling over with them whenever they were alone. She cried over Bismuth with fresh urgency, wished for a thousand do-overs, for conversations they could never have, and Garnet cried with her, because this future wasn’t one she’d seen coming, either.

 

Maybe the same would be true of Jasper.

 

If they ever found her.

 

It was their rotten luck that Amethyst and the others came back from the Beta Kindergarten—one place neither had even considered looking—to a handful of rubies back again to look for Jasper. Neither Pearl nor Garnet found out what had happened until after they returned from space, and Pearl had fled to her room shortly thereafter. Garnet let her, with assurances to Steven and Amethyst that she would handle Pearl, and the younger Crystal Gems didn’t argue. Garnet usually took care of these kinds of things.

 

Garnet wasn’t at all surprised to find her partner in the boiler room some hours later, eyes dry but puffy from crying.

 

“We can’t unbubble her,” Garnet cautioned her in lieu of announcing her arrival. “Not if she’s corrupted.”

 

“Garnet!” Pearl gasped, whirling, guilty and pale. The Fusion eyed the bubble in her hands critically, removing her visor, and the smaller Gem averted her gaze. “I’m sorry, I…”

 

“I don’t blame you,” Garnet said simply, tugging her forward for an embrace, and Pearl released the bubble to wind her arms around Garnet’s waist instead, face pressed into her chest. “I didn’t see this coming, Pearl. I’m sorry.”

 

“I want to see her again,” Pearl whispered, “Garnet, it—it’s not fair. We’ve never seen corruption in this age. We didn’t even get to fight again, I…”

 

Pearl trailed off, then choked on a sob, clutching Garnet desperately. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry, Garnet…”

 

“We both got attached,” Garnet murmured into Pearl’s hair, “It’s not your fault for loving deeply, Pearl.”

 

“She could’ve stayed,” Pearl whispered, “If I’d asked—maybe she—and then this wouldn’t’ve happened…”

 

Garnet hushed her, rocking Pearl gently where they stood, fingers threading through fine pink locks. They both knew better. Bismuth especially would have complicated things, and there was no gauging Jasper’s underlying hatred for their cause. Even with the peace they had found in each other’s arms, there were thousands of years between them, Gems fought and lost on both sides. It was a lost cause.

 

“There’s no changing the past,” the Fusion murmured, and it wasn’t soothing. But she kissed Pearl’s temple and rubbed the back of her neck, working tension out of her lover with deft fingers. And Pearl eventually relaxed; her tears subsided eventually, and her breathing evened out, and Garnet was rewarded with a hug that wasn’t nearly so desperate.

 

Pearl drew back finally, framing Garnet’s face with her pale hands, and she mustered up a weak impression of a smile. “You’re right. You’re always right. There’s no time for regrets,” certainty wasn’t in her voice, either, but Pearl kissed Garnet softly and curled into her embrace.

 

Garnet was quiet for several moments. “We have to go to the Beta Kindergarten,” she murmured, avoiding Pearl’s gaze. The noise of distress that she made was enough to break Garnet’s heart, and she hugged her tightly. “You’re welcome to stay, if you aren’t up to it.”

 

“I won’t make you go alone,” Pearl insisted, even though her voice cracked and her hands trembled slightly. “It’s where they fought Jasper, isn’t it?”

 

“Mm.”

 

“I need to see,” Pearl whispered, blinking against the resurgence of tears in her eyes. “I have to see if she kept that ribbon. It should still be there somewhere.”

 

Garnet nodded mutely. The same thought had crossed her mind, and despite everything, she was glad Pearl was the one to voice it. The bigger Gem leaned down to wipe Pearl’s tears, tilting her face up to steal a gentle kiss.

 

“We’ll go together.”

 

And they did.

 

They all did; the Crystal Gems (Peridot included, as their expert Kindergartener) warped to the Beta Kindergarten the following day. Pearl made a litany of excuses as she searched, but stopped trying to explain _anything_ when Amethyst got suspicious.

 

She couldn’t bring herself to simply _ask_ whether Amethyst had seen the ribbon.

 

So Pearl searched, and Garnet split off with her, offering no explanation as Peridot shouted after them that they were going the wrong way. Garnet’s future vision helped guide them, helped Pearl find exactly what she was looking for.

 

Jasper’s hole.

 

There was no mistaking it, no question in Pearl’s mind when she saw it. A perfect exit hole carved in sandstone, with a glassy shine inside that spoke of the intensity of Jasper’s creation. Few Gems could boast a perfect birth, and Pearl wasn’t entirely surprised that Jasper was one who could.

 

Garnet boosted her without a word, hopping up into the hole after her. Pearl let her fingers ghost along the smooth glassy surface of the wall as she walked, counting steps without thinking. She was no expert, but she had seen the Prime Kindergarten. She’d seen other holes.

 

Jasper was a prodigy. A testament to the perfection the Diamonds so desperately sought after. She was a perfect quartz soldier, all the way to the back of her hole, contoured perfectly to the shape of her shoulders and back.

 

Pearl couldn’t keep it together.

 

She sank to her knees with a low wail, pressed her face into her hands, and cried. Behind her, she could feel Garnet moving around, inspecting something, and found she couldn’t care. She leaned against the back wall, hand splayed over the indent where Jasper had first formed, and cried bitterly.

 

“Pearl.”

 

The tremble in Garnet’s normally rock-steady voice drew the smaller Gem out of her reprieve, and she looked up, face wet with tears, to see Garnet holding something in hand.

 

It was hard to see in the dark, and Pearl squinted, then reached out hesitantly.

 

The purple and blue ribbon was still tied in the bow Garnet had made a week earlier, in Jasper’s hair. Pearl didn’t need light to be sure of that much. “She didn’t untie it?” Pearl whispered breathlessly, and Garnet shook her head, closing her hand around Pearl’s slim fingers before crushing her in a tight hug.

 

“She must’ve wanted to keep it intact,” Garnet whispered, “That’s why Amethyst never mentioned it.”

 

Pearl felt her throat constrict, and she choked back a sob, pressing her face into Garnet’s neck to hide her tears.

 

“We’ve got to find a way to fix this, Garnet,” she whispered, “We’ve _got_ to.”

 

“We will,” Garnet murmured, “That much I can guarantee.”

 

They’d do it together.


End file.
